Minneapolis

Welcome to Orchid Restaurant!

Located in the White Bear Township shops adjacent to the White Bear Township theater, the Orchid Restaurant is owned by the Nguyen family who also own two restaurants in France. The fresh, distinctive flavors of Vietnamese and French cooking are well represented on the Orchid Restaurant menu. Chinese and Thai dishes are also featured. Additional restaurant services include children’s, vegetarian, and gluten free menus as well as gift certificates and catering. The restaurant offers selected wines to complement their menus and a full bar.

Minneapolis, nicknamed “City of Lakes” and the “Mill City,” is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States. Its name is attributed to the city’s first schoolteacher, who combined mni, a Dakota Sioux word for water, and polis, the Greek word for city.

As of 2011, the estimated population of the city of Minneapolis is 387,753. Minneapolis lies on both banks of the Mississippi River, just north of the river’s confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Saint Paul, the state’s capital. Known as the Twin Cities, MinneapolisÐSaint Paul is the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S., with the area containing approximately 3.3 million residents.

The city is abundantly rich in water, with twenty lakes and wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls, many connected by parkways in the Chain of Lakes and the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway. Among cities of similar densities, Minneapolis has the most dedicated parkland. It was once the world’s flour milling capital and a hub for timber, and today is the primary business center between Chicago and Seattle, with Minneapolis proper containing the fifth highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies.

Minneapolis has cultural organizations that draw creative people and audiences to the city for theater, visual art, writing, and music. The community’s diverse population has a long tradition of charitable support through progressive public social programs and VOLAGs, as well as private and corporate philanthropy.

The history and economic growth of Minneapolis are tied to water, the city’s defining physical characteristic, which was brought to the region during the last ice age ten thousand years ago. Fed by a receding glacier and Lake Agassiz, torrents of water from a glacial river cut the Mississippi riverbed and created the river’s only waterfall, St. Anthony Falls, important to the early settlers of Minneapolis. Lying on an artesian aquifer and flat terrain, Minneapolis has a total area of 58.4 square miles (151.3 km2) and of this 6% is water. Water is managed by four watershed districts that correspond to the Mississippi and the city’s three creeks. Twelve lakes, three large ponds, and five unnamed wetlands are within Minneapolis.